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"When I say “the modern world,” what do you think of? Probably a great city
somewhere, with broad avenues, spacious parks, art and culture, old museums,
people buzzing about, public transport thrumming.
Now think of America. People die for a lack of insulin. Young people who can’t
afford to start families of their own. The average person living perched right
at the edge of ruin, one missed paycheck, one illness, one emergency away from
disaster. An endless and gruesome list of stuff that puts the dark ages to
shame.
Here’s what I think. American never joined the modern world. It’s the modern
world’s first failed state. It became something like a weird, bizarre
dystopia, replete with falling life expectancy, hand-to-mouth living,
relentless and legendary cruelty, instead of a truly modern society instead.
But why?
The creation of “modernity,” as intellectuals sometimes call it, was one of
history’s greatest accomplishments. But what does it mean to be “modern”? I
don’t think that we need grand abstruse theories to really get it. I think it
hinges on one simple, crucial, and deceptively beautiful insight.
Poverty unleashes animal spirits in human beings which lead to ruin,
catastrophe, and war. That’s the essence of modernity — I’ll come to
precisely how this great insight changed the world. First, I want you to
understand how we learned it."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
